Book Review: China Mieville's Kracken

China Mieville’s Kracken is an odd duck of a book. Quickly summarized, when a giant squid disappears from London’s Natural History museum, curator Billy becomes entrapped into a wild labyrinth of magical forces trying to bring about – or to prevent – the end of the world. Billy takes a classic hero’s journey, but Kracken’s real hero is the world Mieville builds up: a complex web of mythologies, all striving for the mystical powers of the giant squid. It was all very interesting, but I found the novel falling short of excellence. Mieville is too erudite for his own good, with wordplay so obscure that it overshadows the story. And while plotted like a thriller – entertaining and fast-paced – the book felt surprisingly lightweight, with thin characters who never resonated with me. Take Collinsworth – a snappy, punkish cop who I pictured as Amy Winehouse (a perfect comparison I read somewhere). She’s everything that I should like in a character, but she never really fell into place for me.  Likewise Goss and Subby – malevolent agents of mayhem that just seemed silly to me.

So why did I stick with all 529 pages? Because of sections like Chapter 25, where we’re introduced to shabtis - small figures placed inscribed with a task they need to perform for the famous Egyptian mummies with whom they are buried. Mieville’s shabtis decide to strike and demand compensation for their labor, led by "Wati" who changes his inscription to read "I shall NOT do it.” His journey backwards out of the underworld to become a magical organizer in "the new Unionism" is a brilliant and moving mash-up of mythologies. This why you read Mieville, and I longed for more of it. What is the capitalism of this union of magical familiars? What are their politics? Unfortunately, we never get past Wati’s amazing origin story as he becomes just another player in Billy’s journey.

It’s obvious that Mieville had high hopes for this book; he strives to build up a complex London mythology as he combines cultural myths and pulp fiction plotting. But in the end the characters and rapid-fire plotting didn’t speak to me. Regardless, I’m glad I read it - for while this wasn’t Mieville’s best work, I continue to admire how high he aims. Even when he falls short, he still ends up with a high mark.

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